


Ugh. Johnny Mathis

by This_ape_writes



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Advent calendar prompt, F/M, Fluff, Holiday, basement office
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-05
Updated: 2014-12-05
Packaged: 2018-02-28 05:49:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2721071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/This_ape_writes/pseuds/This_ape_writes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is my day 5 contribution for Alien's Scully's advent calendar Xfiles extravaganza to create something with the prompt Decorating the Basement Office for the Holidays. <br/>Enjoy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ugh. Johnny Mathis

It was already snowing. December 5th and it was already snowing globs of brown slushy awful city snow. Wasn't that just swell. 

He stepped inside the J. Edgar Hoover building and shook the slushy muddy mess off of his only pair of dress shoes still in mildly decent shape and muttered several curse words under his breath. The guard at the front door raised an eyebrow at his outburst as he dropped his keys in the trey and slid through the metal detector. 

Of course he'd forgotten his badge on the day his cars battery decided to crap out, making him already an hour late and now forcing him to navigate the visitors metal detector barrage instead of the usual hassle free entrance. 

Now as the machine around him beeped, he groaned and it took all of his will power not to drop to his knees and just give up on this day. 

Not that he was rushing into an exciting day at the office anyway. They'd just wrapped up a case with nothing interesting or new on the horizon which meant a day of receipts, reports and probably a migraine. 

The guard waved him over closer and ran a wand over him catching at his belt buckle. He groaned and tore the offending belt off, flinging it to rest with his keys as he walked back through the machine. 

He crossed under its metal detecting trellis of death and more beeps sounded. 

Something in his wallet this time around. 

The next time it was something on the sole of his shoe. 

When he was finally waved through his mood had gone from sour to homicidal as he clamped his wallet in his teeth and struggled to re loop his belt while he walked. 

And he hadn't taken the time for coffee or breakfast which his stomach happily reminded him of with a series of gurgles and paings. Come to think of it he hadn't taken time for dinner the night before either. 

He sighed. 

It was already too late. There was no way he was going through the metal detector again and it was after 10 so the cafeteria would be closed already as they prepped for lunch. 

"Just great," he snapped to himself as he clipped his belt closed and crammed his wallet back into his pocket. 

He was honestly surprised when the elevator arrived and then deposited him in the basement without trapping him inside or plummeting several stories down to his death. But arriving at the lowest level without incident did nothing to improve his mood. 

He stepped out of the elevator and headed towards the office door and slowed his walking when he heard something. Theirs was the only occupied office on this floor so it had to be his partner but it didn't sound like voices. In fact. It almost sounded like...  
It sounded like...

"Oh no," he said as he walked closer. 

It sounded like Johnny Mathis. 

When he pushed open the door to their office he sighed and hung his head as he absolutely heard Johnny Mathis. Johnny 'oh dear god not now' Mathis who was gleefully crooning about details of the holiday season that was unavoidably arriving. 

He had to bite his tongue to keep from cursing. 

He shrugged his coat off and tossed it on the coat rack and then looked up to see his partner, across the room, dangerously balanced on top of one of the filing cabinets. She was leaning so far back that she was giving him vertigo just by watching her as she tacked multicolored lights around their bulletin board. 

"Scully. If you fall..." He warned loud enough for her to know he was there but hopefully not too loud to scare her into the fall he'd just tried to prevent. 

Luckily she didn't fall. She didn't even jump but turned to face him with a grin. He noticed that she had about five bright color push pins clamped between her lips and it made her words come out sounding funny when she spoke. 

"I'm ot unna fall ulder. Vut you can help if ooo want," she said. He sighed. 

Decorating weeks in advance for a holiday he can't stand. Yeah. Sure. That's what he WANTS to do today. 

Still, he moved to stand next to her and reached up to pull the strand of lights out of her grip to hold it in a straight line at the top of the board. 

He sighed again. 

She turned to look at him and he realized too late that he was standing way too close to her. He could feel her breath hitting his cheek and he could smell her hairspray when she moved. 

And just like that, his chest felt like it was filled with a live exposed wire from the hot lights in his hands. 

Dammit. 

This same feeling. This out of control feeling of...of...what was at its core, probably some version of desire, had showed up out of nowhere a few weeks back when she had been released from the ICU. He had insisted on being the one to drive her home and when she had thanked him by giving him a hug at her door he felt like his entire skeletal structure had transformed to a jellyfish. 

At the time he had chalked the feelings up to gratitude that her Cancer was finally gone. 

But dammit if he didn't feel those same stupid feelings right this second like a complete asshole. He had the irrational desire to run his fingers through her hair and he knew that he was breathing fast enough to be noticed by her investigative senses. 

But if she noticed she didn't say anything but instead she reached up to pull one of the pins away from her mouth. She brushed against his hand as she leaned forward and poked one of the pins in between the wires. 

"Try not to ve too exshited," she said as she slid a glance over at him and smirked. 

He thought for a moment that she was calling out his obvious change in blood pressure. In fact he was sure that she was purposefully torturing him as she reached up and slowly removed the four pins that remained trapped against her lips one by one. 

Now his chest was not just being internally electrocuted but his fingers were starting to tingle and hum and his throat had lost all of its natural moisture making it click out into the room when he attempted to swallow. On top of which, his eyes now seemed incapable of looking anywhere else other than directly at her mouth. 

But she kept speaking. 

"I know that you hate Christmas Mulder, but you don't have to be so grumpy," she said. "What is wrong with you today?"

Oh. She was being sarcastic when she said he was excited. 

Boy if she only knew the truth. 

He sighed again. Again for the 26th time since he woke up, and he pulled his brain back into reality to try and answer her question like a human. 

"I'm sorry Scully, it's just been a shitty morning," he said. Her eyelids fluttered in surprise and her smirk folded into a look of genuine distress and she reached up to put a hand on his shoulder. Nowhere near his heart but he was pretty sure she'd still be able to feel his overactive heartbeat even from up there. 

"I'm so sorry. What happened this morning?" She asked. He huffed out a laugh and motioned his head back towards the lights so she'd stop staring at him and she took the hint and went back to the task at hand. 

Of course when she did that she slid her hand completely down his arm and squeezed his elbow in empathy before she let go which almost made him drop the lights. 

Dammit Scully was she trying to kill him?

"Uh," he said trying to stay on target. "Um, lots of things just went wrong," he said as she pushed in another pin. 

"Like?" She prodded over her shoulder as Johhny Mathis gave way to Manheim Steamroller from the radio behind them on the desk. 

"Like. Dead battery, snow, leaving my badge, missing dinner AND breakfast and getting stuck in the metal detectors upstairs."

"Ugh. Those stupid things are way too sensitive," she muttered as she poked the last two pins into place. "There!" She said as he let go of the lights that now framed photos of big foot and news clippings of UFO's from Australia. She turned to face him and again he realized that they were still way too close, but he couldn't force himself to move away. 

All he could manage to do was to stare at her beautifully expectant face that absolutely glowed in the soft colored light that now surrounded her. 

He was the sucker that believed in anything. He believed in aliens and vampires and ghosts and spontaneous human combustion but he couldn't bring himself to believe that she was real. She made his life so immeasurably better that she could only be something that he imagined. After years of being isolated in this basement maybe his mind finally broke and she was his beautiful hallucination. That's the only explanation for her presence. 

He watched her, still in a trance as she reached out to rest her hands against each of his shoulders. Sure, they invaded each other's personal space all the time but rarely did they actually make contact with each other. At least not at her initiation. He stared down at her right thumb against his collar bone that was close enough to graze his chin when he turned his head and he couldn't move. 

He felt his heartbeat kick into a whole new frenetic frenzy and he frowned. 

What the...what? He thought. She cleared her throat just inches from his right ear and he shivered as he forced his eyes to follow from her hands up to her wrists and along the line of her arm before meeting her eyes that were giving him and amused smirk again. 

"What?" He asked. She looked down at the ground that was way too far away from her feet to safely jump without hurting herself and she shrugged. 

"A little help?" She asked. 

Oh. 

Thank god for the muted lighting because he could feel the heat pulsing out of his embarrassed cheeks at misreading her gestures entirely. 

"Yeah, uh...of course. Sorry," he said as he braced a hold on either side of her and helped her slide to the ground with a soft clip as her feet were safely on the earth again. 

He started to release her and straighten up but her hands were still holding his shoulders and before he could process what was happening she pressed one of her palms against his face and pulled him close enough to kiss the edge of his mouth. 

His jaw fell open and he slipped into a stunned catatonic state as she pulled back and smiled. 

"Thank you," she said, giving him a second, quicker kiss. "Oh and I have something that will fix at least part of your problems this morning," she said as she slid away from him. 

Problems what problems?Brainwaves what were brainwaves?  
Coherent thoughts what were coherent thoughts?

He was going to spend the rest of his life right here, hunched over in their basement office, a stupid grin on his face unable to move until death takes him and he was fossilized into a statue. 

He'll stand as an eternal monument to the unbelievably potent powers of his insanely smart partner and her other worldly flawless lips. 

"Mulder?" She asked and he realized she'd said something that he was supposed to respond to. 

Good god man pull it together he thought as he forced his body to act unaffected and perch against the edge of his desk. 

"Yeah," he said. 

"I asked you if you were alright. You're not sick are you?" She asked as she crossed the room and made a move to try and place her palm against his forehead. 

Oh dear god if she touched him again he really would collapse so he reached up to bat her hand away and he swung around the desk to sit in the chair. 

"No I'm fine Scully I'm just..." But he couldn't think of any way to describe what he was. So he didn't. She frowned at him but didn't say anything and turned instead to a large paper bag that she unfolded and opened. 

"What's that?" He asked, trying to mentally will his heart to just calm the hell down. 

She looked up at him and grinned as she pulled out two foil wrapped packages. 

"Wait," he said as she wiggled her eyebrows and set the packages on the desk. "Hot bagels?" He asked. 

"Sausage, egg, cheddar cheese, hot sauce on an everything bagel just like you like it," she said as he picked one of the foil packages up. His stomach growled in response and he closed his eyes and inhaled the foody goodness as he peeled back the foil. 

"Oh my god Scully, you're the best!" He said. 

"I know," she said as she set napkins down and then reached back into the bag to produce two coffees. 

"And caffeine?" He sighed as he popped the lid off of the styrofoam cup with a squeak and took a sip. Real sugar, way too much cream. Just the way God intended for coffee to be consumed. "Oh Scully I don't deserve you," he said. She chuckled and switched off the radio as she sat down across from him with her own bagel. 

"No. You probably don't," she teased but her smile faded to a serious look as she stared down at her food. "But, Mulder, I don't deserve you either so we're even," she said in a tone that wasn't kidding anymore. He swallowed the bite of egg that he had only partially chewed and his chest hurt as it worked its way down his esophagus. Her face had grown soft and if he didn't know any better he could have sworn she was blushing herself as she smiled into her hands and then took a bite of her food. 

He had no idea what to say. So he grinned like an idiot instead. 

"Why did you shut off the music?" He asked breaking them back into an attempt at normal. She shrugged one of her shoulders and took a huge bite of her food. 

"I know you don't like it," she said as she chewed and swallowed and avoided eye contact. And that was it. He felt a wave of complete adoration rush over his body like a bucket of ice and he reached over to switch the radio back on. 

With his fingers still holding tightly to the radio on switch, he realized something. 

That from right now, until the rest of his pathetic life was over, he was very sure that he would be willing to do whatever it took to make her happy. 

He'd even listen to Christmas music.


End file.
